I wouldn't be involved in any trend trade which can't hold a 20 ema on a pullback. If you do this, then THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF OPPOSING BAR CLOSES IN THE TREND will offer you up excellent real-time reward to risk ratios at a winning pct level of 50/50 at worst. You've reduced successful trading down to one simple problem: Can I decide correctly at least 50% of the time that I'm actually IN a trend? Do the math now. How can you possibly lose long-term if your average win/loss ratio after transaction fees is 1.5x to 1 and you're right 50% of the the time over 100's, and eventually, 1000's of trades? Go to any chart with good volatility. Measure the MAE's and MFE's from EVERY red bar close in uptrends to the very top of where the trend actually ended and vice verse with downtrends from the green bar closes to the very bottom of where the trends end. ["trend" means price is obviously one-sided to a 20 ema] You've spent 11 years over-analyzing entry decisions, lamenting when they've been wrong and coming up with a collection of individual "why's", thinking there's some grand answer to it all. STOP DOING THAT. Do the above and you will WIN in the long-term and wonder why you ever got so an@l in the first place.
You're making two questionable assumptions that (1) Indicators work, and (2) Other traders succeed with them and can advise you. Trading is a big do-it-yourself exercise. So equip yourself with a good backtesting package, work it to death for thousands of hours, find something that may work with your personality and goals, forward test it, then go to work. And don't get hung up on on a single bad trade. It doesn't define your trading career. But do make sure that you take a lesson from it, and move on. Best of luck.
Excellent points Mr. lindq. TA indicators only worked for me in backtesting. I was so excited when I tried back test with MACD, RSI, MA, Bollinger Bands... thinking I found my gold mine, printing press, as looking backward they made so much sense and worked all the time. Then the rude awakening going forward.... I think curve fitting historical data always works - I can always find some formula that fit the data perfectly - going as far back as I like. So, now I stay away from TA and just stare at the charts all day long.
My suggestion, if you have conviction in a stock, done your homework, do the following; When you buy into a position buy with the thought at the back of your mind price may reverse. If stop gets hit, so be it, but if it reverses again, chase it if all the bullish signals are still there. My opinion on looking at price action of MHK, going long was the correct decision. Just because it smacked you once shouldn't mean you give up on it.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see how going long that stock was a low-risk, high probability strategy any way you look at this. Again, you have to look at the bigger picture. What he thought was a breakout was a rally of a laggard into resistance -- go across the chart and look at where that rally stopped (in addition to the declining 100-period MA). I'm not trying to be critical, but just stating that this doesn't appear to be "just a case of a trade not working out." Hope that helps.
you are not going anywhere with this TA garbage. someone suggested quantifying this - ain't gonna work either, you will quantify and find something, only to fail in real trading. just buy the damn QQQ and hold... you will actually learn a lot from holding. checking my 'trading is easy' thread, what to learn and how to learn thru even a simple holding process not to be shaken off the tree. understand who the players are, and how they play - that's the logic of the market. not this blue line red line bs.
Your strategy involves waiting for a bullish divergence between price and the MACD... That occurred early June. Next, you wait for a breakout on high volume (OBV was highest) and then you enter your trades on a price pullback. 1) What's the purpose of the other indicators on your chart...specifically what do you use the 50ma and the RSI for ??? 2) Why would you be a "tad confused" (your words) as to which setups work. Didn't you backtest the bullish divergence for the MACD, OBV volume breakouts and your entry into a pullback (retracement) as a 3 part trade signal strategy ??? 3) If you did backtest your 3 part trade signal strategy...did the trade loss fit into the threshold for the losses revealed in your backtest results ??? Yet, if you did no backtest...there's the problem because you're now confused about the trade loss when you should just move on...preparing for your next trade. Backtesting is critically important to put your money management and discipline to work because you'll know what's going on with that 3 part trade signal setup you're using. wrbtrader
You're technically correct about holding the US stock indices. But the reality is most people in short-term trading have only modest or even extremely little capital, and short-term trading is a way (they think) to maximise its potential. So long-term buy-and-hold isn't a viable way for them to become financially independent. You are wrong saying that TA is garbage. Actually, TA is very helpful, it is the traders who are garbage.
yup heard that argument often. the answer is get a job... full employment right now.. this is a race of who can hold the most shares of techs before AI takes over.... so don't sit in the basement and say I have to swing for the fences because I only have $500 to trade.. the odds ain't any better than buying powerball tickets. TA - have not met one rich technician.